Day Thirty Four

After a long journey of 7 hours of bus journey, 2 hours of bus waiting, another 2 hours of cable car waiting, and another ½ an hour of cable car journey, we’re finally reach the mountain of the Wudang mountain.

We were told by Mrs. Shi that Wudang mountain suppose to be cold, and we are suppose to wear as thick as we can. However, it is different. The weather is normal, but the walking of stairs made me perspired a lot.

In Wudang, there are many interesting histories written there. It is written that the Forbidden City was built in the 17th century of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty by an imperial order. It was built with slab stones, the city wall is 345 meters long. It is about several meters high, differing in different sections; the wall footing is over 2.5 meters thick and the top of the wall is 1.26 meters thick. Built on the edges of precipices, the Forbidden City gives it the flavor of magnificent palace. There are four heaven gates in the wall in four directions (east, west, south, and north). Only the south heaven gate is of three-fold: The divine gate in the middle in closed all the year round; the human gate on the left is open for visitors and the demon gate on the right is closed for devils. It is said that if one has gone through the human gate, he or she is in the heaven realm.

After reading the historical past of the Forbidden City, we went on and enjoy the views that we deserve after walking so many uneven stairs. While walking, we saw the direction towards the golden roof. We decided to walk up and see what’s really nice about it, that so many people willing to spend their time travelling all the way here.

The old name “Golden Roof” was replaced by another name which is the “Heaven Pillar Peak”. The heaven pillar peak, with an elevation of 1612 meters, is the summit of Mt. Wudang. Standing on the summit, visitors have a bird’s-eye view of another 72 peaks that look like 72 Taoist devotees lying prostrate at the feet of Emperor Zhen Wu. Haven Pillar Peak is well known for its eight beautiful views: The Sunrise at the summit of Heaven Pillar’s Peak; the Palace being tempered amidst the thunder and fire, the mirage of ZhenWu, the Great Master; the inverted image of the golden palace; the sea horse spurting frog; Sudden claps of thunder, the sea-wave like rolling mountains, and flying ants making a Pilgrimage to emperor ZhenWu.

In the Golden Roof, there’s a golden hall. There are many people praying and was very crowded. I managed to learn some history of the Golden Hall. It was built in the 14th centuries of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty by an imperial order. The hall is 5.8 meters long, 4.2 meters wide and 5.54 meters high. With traditional Chinese architecture of double-roof nine-bracket structure, the hall was cast with copper and coated with gold, showing dazzle brightness. The Golden Hall enshrines Emperor ZhenWu, The Golden Boy and the Jade Maiden, General turtle and general snake, God of water and God of Fire. On the gold horizontal inscribed board were written four characters by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty which reads: Golden rays light the world (金光妙像).

Our Wudang trip ended here, exhausted but meaningful and enriching.